


fact not fiction

by Terminality



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, M/M, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-29
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 21:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terminality/pseuds/Terminality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With him pressed close against you, your hands on his wrists and his body almost touching yours, you notice a few things about him.</p>
<p>One: that he's getting taller than you.</p>
<p>Two: that his skin is a little darker than you remember it (which could just be the lightning, you think).</p>
<p>Three: that he is very, very pointedly trying to not look at you.</p>
<p>(Dave second person POV, very light Dave/Karkat.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	fact not fiction

**Author's Note:**

> Another Tumblr request: "I was thinking of something where Karkat's eyes start to fill in with his blood color so Dave let's him wear his sunglasses while he walks around with his own eyes showing to take some attention away from him. It would probably take place on the three year meteor journey." Now that I'm caught up on that sort of thing, it's time to buckle down and work on Shadows of Ourselves again.
> 
> Also of note I pretty much exclusively listened to "A Lack of Color" by Death Cab for Cutie while working on this, so the title is inspired from that.

You had started being concerned when Karkat had skipped your weekly strife session. It wasn't like him to back down from a fight, especially against you (he knows you will mock him for it, use it as fuel against him in the long run), and now that you are standing here in the food preparation block alone, no sign of Karkat in sight, you are beginning to get concerned.

It's been several days. You lose track, because keeping track is hard when there's nothing to quantify what's day and what's night, but you know that something along the line of four days worth of hours has past since you last saw him. It isn't like him. You have been a constant force against each other since the day you arrived on this meteor, moreso lately than ever, and for him to back off and dissappear completely from sight for four days is more than unusual.

It's deeply concerning.

You wait in the cafeteria for a while longer, eyeing your plate of food but finding that you don't have any interest in eating it at all, before you get to your feet and decide to seek him out yourself. You trash the rest of your uneaten lunch, toss the plate into the sink, and head off toward his wing of the meteor.

You snap into existence on the other side of the telepad, taking a deep breath and looking around the hallway. There's no sign of him - to the side of the pad, there's a small pile of bicycle horns, a scalemate or two thrown into the mess, and the lights are half-off in the first half of the hallway, but other than that it is fairly unremarkable.

You head for his room in the back. He'll be upset with you for just bursting in - it upsets the delicate balance of dancing around each other you've both established - but you don't give a fuck. You're honest to god concerned for the moron.

The door isn't locked when you enter his room, so you press the button and let yourself inside without so much as a knock. You expect to get something thrown at your head upon entry, going so far as to duck slightly to the side immediately upon stepping inside, but nothing comes your way. There's no light on in the room, but when you look further back you can see light coming from underneath another door, and you walk over to it, leaning against the door to listen for any sign of him.

You can hear running water. You think about bursting in there, too, and immediately demanding why he's been avoiding everyone lately, but you don't. You walk over to the chair that's propped up against the wall and you sit and wait, eyes fixed on the metal door.

He comes out of the room several minutes later and notices you almost immediately, a panicked look spreading over his face a second later. He tries to back up into the bathroom but you flashstep his way, grabbing his wrists and holding them down to his sides and him firmly in place.

He thrashes against you and turns his face away, growling low in this throat.

"Get off me, Strider." You have to struggle to hold on (when the hell did he get so strong?), but you do, backing him up against the bathroom door to use it as leverage against him. Now that you've finally found him you aren't letting him get away any time soon.

With him pressed close against you, your hands on his wrists and his body almost touching yours, you notice a few things about him.

One: that he's getting taller than you.

Two: that his skin is a little darker than you remember it (which could just be the lightning, you think).

Three: that he is very, very pointedly trying to not look at you.

You tighten your grip on his wrists when he tries to struggle again and it takes all of your effort to keep him in place. You're built for speed, not strength, so a tussle like this isn't your strong point, but you're determined.

"Where have you been? I thought you crawled off to some musty corner of this hellhole and died, never to be seen or heard from again," you shift your weight and he presses his face against the wall and his shoulder, still avoiding looking at you.

"Hey, Vantas, come on." You nudge him with your knee, afraid to release your grip on his hands or else he'll try to run away from you again, and you look at him over the tops of your sunglasses. "What the hell is wrong. I know I'm so handsome you can barely resist but that's no reason to avoid looking at me."

That gets a snarl of annoyance out of him, but he's still focused on the floor at your side, refusing to look at you clearly, and you're beginning to get impatient. You sigh, any remaining anger you might have felt at him draining out of you, and you slowly let go of his wrists.

"Look, man. It's cool if you don't wanna talk, but don't just disappear like that and expect me to be cool with it. Terezi and Gamzee have been askin' me about you, too." He stiffens in front of you, taking a deep breath, before finally looking in your direction.

Your breath catches in your throat.

"Oh shit, Karkat, dude. Your _eyes_." He winces at that, moving to turn his head away, but you grab onto his chin and hold his face even with yours, preventing him from avoiding eyecontact further.

"They're horrible. Of course I knew it would happen eventually - becoming a mature troll meant my... blood color would become fucking plastered to my face for every nooksniffer to see." He sounds defeated, like his own biological make up has betrayed him. Which, yeah. It has, and it sucks, and you know exactly how it feels, because you've faced far too pale skin and bright red eyes your whole life.

"They aren't horrible." He narrows his eyes at you, pulling his chin free from your grip and slipping away from you and the wall to sit on the floor by the pile of pillows and scalemates he's tucked into the corner of the room. He isn't trying to run from you any more, which is good, and you sit down across from him, taking advantage of the pile at his side.

"Except for the part where, yeah, they fucking are. I'm a mutant, a fucking freak of nature, and now the whole remaining world can witness that first-hand. It's disgusting and I'm disgusting and--" You feel your stomach flip and you cut him off.

"Shut the hell up, dude." He blinks at you, eyes that are finally standing out as a noticeable red staring at you through narrowed eyelashes. They almost glow in the dimly lit room. You think that it is a very photograph-worthy effect, and if it weren't for the fact that he would likely punch you, you would take a picture.

"I don't want to hear your fucking pity party. You think you're the only person with problems like that?" He draws his knees up to his chest, pressing his chin into them, and he takes a slow, deep breath.

"It is a mutation, after all," he says.

You sit in silence for a moment, him across from you, gaze focused on the metal floor with rapt attention, you staring at the top of his head, and you feel bad. You feel bad because you understand and don't understand at all at the same time. You want to tell him that's it's cool, no one is going to judge him, because everyone here is his friend, but then you feel like a hypocrite, because you know you haven't taken your shades off around these people, ever, for the same reason.

You get an idea, then. It makes you nervous and you have to get up the willpower to bring yourself to finally lift your hands to your face, and another several seconds to actually take off your shades. He looks up at you halfway through, obviously curious, and you ignore him.

You take off your glasses and sit them on your lap, keeping your eyes closed for a moment, before opening them and looking him straight in the face.

His mouth falls open in a small "oh" shape.

"Like I said. You're not the only person with this problem, dude." He shifts uncomfortably, clearly uncertain of himself and you and what to say next. You fold your sunglasses together before holding them out to him.

"Look, if it's that big of a problem, take them. At least until you're used to it yourself. Because I bet I know how you feel right now, and they help." You motion toward him with the glasses, and he hesitates. "Look, at least this way I'll give them something to talk about other than you. You know even John hasn't seen my eyes yet?"

You feel pretty stupid for admitting that, but the look of surprise and understanding he gives you is worth it.

He takes the glasses from you and stares at them like they have personally offended him, like he isn't sure what to make of their sudden existence in his hands, and you motion with your hand at the glasses and his face. He slips them on slowly, looking up at you through glossy black lenses. He seems calmer now, if not a little uncertain of himself still. You laugh a little at him, feeling incredibly vulnerable and naked without your safety blanket.

You can put up with it for a while, though. You guess that's what you do when you care for someone in whatever kind of weird way you care for Karkat. You aren't really sure it has a good name yet. You know that you feel bad for him, that you understand how he feels and how you feel and how you're both horrible people and you know it. You feel guilty that he has to go through this.

You can put up with the questions everyone will give you if it means he'll be comfortable with himself for a while.

"They look good on you." He tries a grin, but it's broken and all wrong and too fake, and it makes you cringe a little. "Just don't break them or I'll beat the hell out of you, all right? They are a Strider artifact." He probably rolls his eyes, but you can't tell any more, and it's weird, to be on the other side of that impassive mask. He still shows too much expression in the lines around his mouth and the arch of his eyebrows, but it masks the emotion that is normally spiraling in his eyes, and it's weird.

"Thanks. I mean," he pauses, fumbling with the end of his shirt. "Really. Thanks. And I won't break your stupid glasses."

 

You spend the next week dealing with questions from all parties, about where are your glasses and why does Karkat have them and wow, Dave, look at your eyes, but you don't really care through all of it. The trolls seem to know what you did - probably because their eyes are starting to fill in as well - and they look at you with a new gentleness they hadn't before, especially Kanaya. She thanks you, once. You aren't entirely sure why, but you feel sort of vindicated by it.

Karkat follows you around a lot more than normal, and you find that you don't mind. He seems thankful and more confident and stops hiding, and by the time he gives back the glasses, his eyes are a full, vibrant candy red, and he doesn't try to hide them.

He lets you take a picture, once. You keep it in your sylladex, even though you don't really know why.


End file.
